The three months ban imposed on logging across the country is impacting heavily on the operation of the giant Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) factories and it might reduce the farmers earning, the CEO Lerionka Tiampati has said.
Tiampati said that their tea factories require fuel for drying the tea and lot of it comes from the commercial government forests and others from private individuals and with the ban they are affected like everyone else. “We hope to find a solution as we go into the future, the alternative is using furnace oil which is very expensive and it will cost 30 times more for use to be able to use that fuel and when that happens the payment to the farmers will be reduced by the proportion of the increase in fuel cost,” explained Tiampati.
Addressing the press while flagging off the school tanks Tuesday, Tiampati said that this year their tea production has increased by 10 percent in terms of output and the prices have been. Tiampati explained that with the heavy rains there is too much product which depresses the prices. Commenting on the Kshs.6.8 million tanks donations, the CEO said that they take care of over 600 small sale farmers spread across the country with half an acre and below. “When we talk about health, water is an important component and so these tanks are going to various schools in our factories to allow the children wash their hands and use the water to plant trees because the environment pillar is one of the things we are responsible for,” said Tiampati.